


Inspecting the Spectacles

by almaasi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bickering, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Glasses, Historical, I guess glasses are clothes?, Illustrated, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Other, Romance, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, except it's 6+1 things, sharing food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21624952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi/pseuds/almaasi
Summary: Six times Aziraphale tries on Crowley's sunglasses with permission, and one time he doesn't need to ask.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 491





	Inspecting the Spectacles

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [Katie](https://crab-full-of-rocks.tumblr.com/) and [anupalya](https://anupalya.tumblr.com/)~!!

  


♥

  


**Rome, 41 AD**

“So! What’s that, then?” Aziraphale asked.

Petronius’ new restaurant was abuzz with voices and laughter, people seated at tables and downing wine by the amphora. Crowley and Aziraphale had sequestered themselves into a shady corner, Aziraphale’s back to the wall, a platter of shellfish on the table between himself and Crowley.

“Oysters, angel,” Crowley said, as he thumbed a third oyster shell open and sucked back the morsel, his face pinching halfway between a wink and wince. “Disgusting, ish whop vhey are.”

“I didn’t mean those, but—” Aziraphale tutted. “For goodness’ sake, if you don’t like them, why are you eating them?”

“Taste good,” Crowley muttered, frowning as he gnawed at the squishy thing in his mouth.

“Ah. They do, at that. But what I meant was—” Aziraphale pointed at Crowley’s face. “That. The thing you’re wearing.”

Crowley looked around, then remembered the dark lenses perched on his nose, two black ovals only just covering his eyes. “Oh. This.” He gulped hard, then took off the lenses with both hands, turning the stiff silver frame as he pondered it over the table. “Didn’t really know what to call it.”

“Invented it, did you?”

“Welllll, sort of.” Crowley smacked his lips. “People assume it’s to keep the sun out of my eyes.”

“Isn’t it?”

Crowley gave Aziraphale a mild look across the smoke-dusted air – and with an inhale and a tense smile, Aziraphale remembered that yellow snake eyes were somewhat more alarming to humans than to fellow celestial beings.

“Wise choice,” Aziraphale supposed.

Crowley set the lenses down on the table with the earpieces curved upward, picking up a cup of wine instead.

Aziraphale reached for the object but didn’t touch it, fingers curling back. “So that’s _glass_ , is it? Inside the metal?”

“Smoked, yeah.” Crowley sipped. “I mean,” he cocked his head, “as close to smoked glass as I could manage.” He’d crafted the lenses out of thin air, and even if they had all the cosmic ingredients of glass, and would break just as messily, they weren’t really glass.

“May I?” Aziraphale’s hand inched towards the lenses again.

Nose in his cup, Crowley gestured a go-ahead motion.

Aziraphale picked up the lenses, a faint smile on his face, absorbed in fascination as he turned the item, studying it. He moved it abortively towards his own nose, then thought better of it, eyes flashing to Crowley’s, then back down.

“Try them on,” Crowley encouraged with a lithe smile. “Probably look ridiculous on you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Aziraphale said, still fiddling with them, holding them up to the nearest candle to see how they filtered the light.

“Go oooohhhn,” Crowley insisted, leaning forward.

With a hasty glance at Crowley, Aziraphale made an ‘oh, al _right_ ’ expression, and gave in to temptation. He placed the arched nosepiece over the bridge of his nose, fitted the arms of the contraption over his ears, and peered at Crowley with a suddenly-dark, suddenly-round pair of eyes. They were still warm from Crowley’s face.

“Well?” Aziraphale looked nervously hopeful. “Do they suit me?”

Crowley arched his lips appreciatively. “Nope.”

Aziraphale took them off quickly. “Regardless, they really are quite ingenious. _And_ ,” he added, lowering them to his lap and gently rubbing at them with his thumb inside his linen robes, “rather more _grubby_ than they ought to be. You should clean them, Crowley.”

“I do clean them. When they get dirt on them.”

“With _what_? Your _fingers_?”

Crowley opened his mouth. Then he closed his mouth. Then he raised his eyebrows and took another oyster, glaring blandly at the angel while he sucked back his abhorrent delicacy.

Once done cleaning, Aziraphale passed the lenses over.

Fingertips hurriedly wiped on his black tunic, Crowley reached out, fingers pressing to the warmth of Aziraphale’s as the metal frame exchanged hands.

“You could call it an eyeglass,” Aziraphale said, as Crowley put the lenses back on, pretending not to be awed by how the absence of grime made it easier to see out. “Except there’s two of them. So, plural. Eyeglasses?”

Crowley shrugged. He smiled a little, as Aziraphale reached for another oyster. And so they supped on, hating the texture but enjoying the taste.

  


♥

  


**Southwark, London, 1601**

“Pardon me for asking, but are those new?”

Crowley glanced up from his crate of apples, and his body flooded with joy that he contained instinctively, only allowing a tiny smirk to quirk up one side of his mouth. “Aziraphaaale,” he drawled. “Long time no see.”

Aziraphale smiled shyly, hands hugging themselves on his middle. He had a white ruff around his neck, of course he did. He tried _not_ to look pleased to see Crowley here, all dressed in black velvet, sitting on a milking stool amidst a bustling byway of common folk and clucking chickens, but Crowley had a feeling the angel was just as delighted to run across a familiar face in the market as Crowley was to be run across.

“What?” Crowley asked, as he finally caught up with the conversation. “Is _what_ new? The apples?” He shook the crate of bruised lumps. “Nah, they’re on their way out. I was heading to the stocks in case anyone wanted to use them to pelt the poor bugger clapped in there by his ankles. Nasty piece of work.”

“Not the apples, those.” Aziraphale wriggled a finger towards the eyeglasses Crowley was wearing.

Crowley went “Psh.” He got up, lugging the crate through the crowd with its weight against one swaying hip. “You are ridiculous. Long hair, a little goat beard, a change of clothing, twenty years – and here you are, thinking I reinvented myself entirely.”

Aziraphale was trotting after him, Crowley knew he was.

“Didn’t you?” Aziraphale asked. “Every time I see you you’re different.”

“Same glasses, angel. Been wearing the same kind for sixteen-hundred years.”

“Not the same pair, surely.”

Crowley reached the edge of the courtyard where the stocks were centred, and he handed the apple crate to the nearest person he saw, who yelled to the crowd and began handing out ammunition. Crowley then turned on Aziraphale with a soft, helplessly fond smile. “Same pair.”

He took them off, looking at them. “Although,” he supposed, giving them a clean on the puffy velvet pleats of his trousers, “they did break a few times. Got trodden on. Stomped by a horse. Crushed under an elephant’s behind, once – don’t ask. Lost in Bermuda, eaten by a rogue shark, then fished out of the ocean in eastern China and posted back to me, somewhat miraculously. Fixed them up good and proper. But. Mm.” He held them up and peered at the curious angel through the lenses. “Same ones.”

He turned them around and offered them to Aziraphale, who drew a hesitant breath, but didn’t resist as Crowley pushed them over the angel’s ears and settled them upon his button nose.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “They really do keep the sun’s glare out of one’s eyes, don’t they?” He looked around, fingers holding onto one metal arm. He appeared to Crowley as though someone ought to accuse him of being fashionable. Yet when Aziraphale looked interestedly back, and asked, “Do they suit me any better in this outfit?” Crowley cackled.

“They’d suit a penguin better,” Crowley said with a half-wink and a sway of his body. The old man in the stocks got hit in the head with an apple, and Crowley flinched a bit.

Aziraphale took the glasses off and handed them back, a touch of disappointment in his eyes. “Perhaps it’s time you tried a different shape.”

“So after complaining I look different, you want me to look more different?”

“I wasn’t complaining. Nor did I say I wanted _anything_.”

“You stated, with an underlying tone.”

“You assume!”

“May I _also_ assume that you approached me today with intentions of asking me to see a Shakespeare play in your company?”

Aziraphale stopped, blank-faced. “I-I-I wasn’t— How did you kn— That’s besides the point—”

Crowley smiled. “Twenty years apart and you haven’t changed a bit, have you? I had a feeling I’d find you down here. Where would Aziraphale be when I need him, I wondered. And here you are. Absorbing the _culture_.”

“We’ll be inconspicuous,” Aziraphale promised. “Blend in with the crowds. And... whatever it is you... _need_ , apparently, we’ll discuss it once I have something to snack on.”

Crowley lowered his head, keeping his smile to himself.

Aziraphale started to frown. At first Crowley thought it was because of the tomato splatter on the old man’s head, but then the angel opened his mouth wide, took a breath, then asked, “Crowley... what on _Earth_ is a penguin?”

  


♥

  


**Paris, 1793**

“You did change them, then,” Aziraphale said, warmly, eyes glistening. “Your eyeglasses.”

“Oh, these old things?” Crowley took them off – then jerked backwards, lower back bumping the white wire of his cafe seat, aggressively surprised by all the pretty pastel colours and the vibrance around him. He looked around at the street gleaming in the sunshine, then down at the crepes on his plate. “Fffforgot I was wearing them.”

He tapped them down on the glass table between them, fingertips going to his eyes to rub. He saw stars burst behind his eyelids.

He sniffed and blinked hard, looking at Aziraphale – who was also pretty, but no longer pastel-coloured, as he wore an executioner’s garb – but he did have those same stars sparkling all around him. He was chewing daintily, fingers poised around his knife and fork.

“What _is_ thissss,” Crowley hissed, squinting blearily at the sky. “Sssun.”

“Don’t like it?” Aziraphale chuckled. “You haven’t seen it in so long, maybe you ought to call these things _sun_ glasses.”

“Maybe I should.” Crowley blinked five times more, then pried up his fork and stabbed his crepe, lifting its floppy mass straight to his mouth, chomping off half. Sundried tomatoes sang on his tongue, salty and mealy and perfect. “Mmmm’sgood. Mm. Good crepe.”

“Isn’t it, just,” Aziraphale agreed. He munched a little more, then his eyes drifted from his plate to the sunglasses. “How long have you had these?”

“Uh? Had what? These glasses? Oh.” Crowley thought back. “Hundred’n ninety-two years? Come _on_ , angel,” he purred. “You haven’t been paying _attention_. I’ve been wearing them the last, what, _hundred and ninety-two_ times we met. Minimum.”

“Well forgive _me_ for being distracted,” Aziraphale said haughtily. “What with all the heists and holdups and heinous misdeeds you’ve been having me tempt people into all this time, you can’t blame me for being preoccupied with something _other_ than your outfits. Which are very fetching, I must say. But the hair—” He twiddled a fork judgmentally in Crowley’s direction. “Those great big rolls of hair over your ears, are they really necessary?”

“Oi,” Crowley said, offended. “Takes me half an hour to do those in the morning.”

Aziraphale got back to his crepe, pretending not to look aghast, and failing.

“Anyway, nearly two hundred years late, you got your wish,” Crowley said carelessly, turning sideways in his cafe chair and flinging one leg up over the other, popping a sundried tomato between reddened lips.

“What wish is that, exactly?”

“Different shape.” Crowley offered the sunglasses, dangled from a single finger and thumb. “Maybe these ones will suit you.”

Aziraphale started on various spluttered retorts, probably about how he _hadn’t_ secretly been hoping Crowley’s sunglasses would suit him, but he said no actual sentences, and eventually curiosity got the better of him, and he put down his fork and knife, patted his lips with his cloth napkin, then reached to take the glasses.

He put them on with sparkling eyes and a tiny smile.

Crowley smirked. Gosh, that poor angel didn’t know how cute he was.

“Any good?” Aziraphale asked, hands together on the tabletop. Under the executioner's soft red cap, the black ovals truly didn’t look too out of place. He’d pass as a demon, easily.

“Eh,” Crowley shrugged. “I’m starting to think you’re just not a sunglasses _person_.”

“And why would I be,” Aziraphale said quickly, snatching off the glasses and putting them down. “I am a creature of light. To seek to block out that light, on _purpose_ , that would be – unspeakably depraved!”

“Un _speak_ able,” Crowley repeated, with an amused lilt. “Really.”

“Really,” Aziraphale said firmly. He got back to his food, but Crowley didn’t miss the sly movement of his eyes as they slid back to the sunglasses, a quiet, private longing.

Crowley took the glasses, and donned them, and leaned forward with his chin on a hand, smiling affectionately at his friend.

It was just so _glorious_ to watch the angel flirt with the darkness. Crowley could allow him to try it, taste it, see how it felt. But Crowley cared too much about him to let him enjoy it.

  


♥

  


**Central London, 1941**

Aziraphale stared at Crowley as they drove the Bentley away from the rubble of the church. He hugged his bag of books on his lap, something indiscernible in his expression, seen only in the flashes of searchlights, as the city was blacked out. Crowley glanced his way often, so glad to see his friend after nearly a hundred years – and by the sheen in Aziraphale’s eyes, _he_ was perhaps even gladder.

It took twenty minutes before Aziraphale arranged his mouth carefully to speak, eyebrows rising, lips unsticking. “All— All new, yes?”

“Wuh?”

“Suits you! Really does. Hmm. Very. Um. Very...” Aziraphale’s breath shivered, “beautiful.”

Crowley was pleased he noticed. He stroked the Bentley’s steering wheel as he turned from one deserted street to another. “Fifteen years new. And ‘beautiful’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

“Oh, no, I was referring to—” Aziraphale glanced at Crowley’s face, but second-guessed himself, and forged on, “Made it yourself, did you? The car?”

Crowley opened his mouth, croaking ponderously. “Acquired. All human handiwork. They’re clever bastards, I’ll give them that, even when they turn around and do all this.” He thumbed out the driver’s side window at a bombed-out community lot.

“Oh, _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale said fondly. “You _bought_ something humans made? You didn’t just summon it into existence?”

Crowley rolled a shoulder. “Rolled out of bed to buy it, rolled back in by the afternoon. Was in the middle of a really good nap. Just. Had a tingly feeling and followed it to see what I’d find.”

He’d felt the same tingly feeling late this afternoon, stirred from sleep again. Opening his curtains he had immediately become distraught by what had happened to the world right outside his bedroom window, and had rushed to hallowed ground, asking a lot of strangers a lot of frantic questions, dressing according to the era as he went along, sniffing out an angel in distress.

He glanced over at Aziraphale, heart full of squishy, warm feelings. He smiled for a while, and Aziraphale smiled back, until he drew a sharp breath and yipped, “Crowley, the road!”

Crowley looked at the road just in time to avoid driving into a wall. They almost drove _up_ the wall, but the wall moved, then hopped back once they’d passed.

Aziraphale huffed. “A hundred years, a new outfit, new sunglasses, new car. But you’re no different, are you. Not one bit.”

Crowley wondered if that was meant to be an insult. “Would be kind of a shame,” he supposed, slowly, “if I was so different each time we met that you didn’t recognise me.” They shared a speculative look.

“A shame it would be,” Aziraphale agreed. “But! Kindly keep your eyes on where you’re going, Crowley, I’m not having another Rampaging Clydesdale Incident. Or that whole ordeal with the wagon in fifteen-twenty.”

Crowley snorted. “Don’t even _need_ to look,” he said. “See. There’s your bookshop.”

The car eased to a grumbling halt at the crossroads outside A. Z. Fell & Co, where all the windows were blacked out and crossed in Xs with masking tape.

Aziraphale let out a small breath. “And you?” There was soft hope in his voice. “Are you staying?”

Crowley gazed at him as the engine went silent. They could still hear bomb sirens in the distance, and the searchlights swung the sky like glowing pendulums.

“You _can_ stay,” Aziraphale said carefully. He swallowed. “If you want.” He stroked the smoky-smelling bag of books on his lap. “I think I— Well, I wouldn’t mind, that is. If you were to stay. At least for a while. Overnight, perhaps.”

Crowley slowly opened his mouth.

Stay? _Stay_?

The word seemed foreign. He had to think hard to make sure he understood its meaning.

“You mean.” His lip bobbed. “Remain on the premises. Physically. While the sirens and searchlights are going.”

“Until you want to go,” Aziraphale said. His eyes didn’t stray from Crowley’s, not once. “Even if the bomb sirens stop in five minutes. We can... have a drink. I can show you some of these books. Tell you about my little wartime adventures.”

“Wh— Whhhwhw.” Crowley looked desperately at the shadow-drenched bookshop through the windshield, then wrenched off his round sunglasses to look at it even harder. Then he stared at Aziraphale. “You mean it?”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, flustered now, “it is dangerous out there, after all, I won’t have you driving around where a bomb might fall. And it would be terribly lonely for me to drink wine all by myself after the events of _tonight_ , don’t you think?”

Crowley nodded vaguely. “Hhh.”

Aziraphale reached to pick up the sunglasses, as they were slipping off Crowley’s thigh and heading for the footwell of the car. He held them, looking at them.

Crowley felt a smile rise, warmth gushing through his belly. “Try them,” he whispered.

Aziraphale caught his eye, a gleam of light in his gaze.

“They’ll look gorgeous on you, angel,” Crowley tempted.

Aziraphale fretted, but lifted them to his face.

Hmm. They looked odd on him. He was all soft colours and wispy shapes, and the sunglasses were stark black and were meant to be paired with a hat.

So Crowley took off his fedora and plopped it on Aziraphale’s head. Oh, Crowley’s heart couldn’t take it. The little creature looked so bewildered. He didn’t look like someone with a new outfit, he looked like he was blind. All he needed was a cane to tap the ground where he walked.

“Someday,” Aziraphale said, adjusting the hat with one hand, then pulling the Bentley’s rear-view mirror towards him to see himself, “I’ll find _something_ that looks right.” He took off the sunglasses and the hat, placing the hat on Crowley’s head, then offering the sunglasses.

Crowley leaned in, holding Aziraphale’s eyes as the angel slid the frame’s arms over Crowley’s ears. They felt all wrong and wonky as he didn’t put them on himself, but they were warm from the angel’s skin and fingers, and that pleasant smile on Aziraphale’s face was just too much to bear.

“I’ll stay,” Crowley said softly. “As long as you’ll let me.”

Aziraphale shot him a tender look. “Just tonight,” he said firmly. “We can catch up. And if you want to... sleep? There’s a sofa. And blankets.”

“Sofa,” Crowley agreed. “Sounds perfect, angel.”

Aziraphale smiled. He glanced down, peered softly at Crowley, then reached to open the car door. “Come along, then, my dear.”

  


♥

  


**New York, New York, 1993**

“Surely.” Crowley turned around, arms out. He wore a neon green pair of sunglasses.

Aziraphale stood beside the other six-foot-tall stands of glasses, all out on display to the street. Arms folded, he shook his head.

Crowley growled, dipping his entire body backwards.

“Just because they wear them on _television_ , Crowley, doesn’t mean they’ll suit you.”

Aziraphale was trying very hard not to look uncomfortable, but the heat was nigh unbearable, the humidity assailed the living and the dead without distinction, and there was a peculiar smell coming from four seperate directions. The choice remained between keeping his overcoat on, and feeling stifled, or taking it off, and losing his one physical barrier between himself and the filth of New York City.

“What about these?” Crowley now wore a purple pair with a pink squiggle design. He tucked his shoulder-length hair behind his ears twice. “Think I could pass as the Fresh Prince?”

“Nothing is fresh in this city, that’s for certain,” Aziraphale said, finally giving in and taking off his coat. He hung it over one arm, fingers at his throat, chin swaying left to right as he loosened his bow tie.

“Aaaaaahkhkk,” Crowley rasped, fed up. “Which ones would you suggest? And _don’t_ say _those_ ones. Anything that makes my jaw look like Ross Geller’s is out.”

Aziraphale offered a flat expression. “You’ve been spending too much time glued to your television set, my dear. Everyone you talk about these days is fictional. Half the time you say things and I don’t even know what you’re talking _about_.”

“And you _would_ , if you’d come watch with me, like I keep saying. Whole hotel room to myself, angel. If we take the lift up separately, nobody’ll ever know.”

Aziraphale plucked up a nice solid pair of sunglasses with a round grey rim and a slight cat-eye. “How about these?”

He offered them, and held them up as Crowley ducked into them, sliding the arms to part locks of his hair.

He looked into the angled mirror atop the display stand. “Mmh! Not bad.”

“Ooh, these!” Aziraphale’s hands flew to a similar pair, but with a brown rim like smoked glass. “This colour matches your hair perfectly.”

Crowley took off his current pair, and let Aziraphale dress him in the new ones.

Aziraphale clutched both hands to his chest. “Oh, they’re perfect,” he warbled in delight. “You simply must get those!”

Crowley looked at his reflection, then pinched the edge of the sunglasses and peered over their rim. “Hm.”

“What, you don’t like them?”

“No, I didn’t say that,” Crowley said slowly. “They just.” He shrugged. “They look like they’ve always been there. Not exciting at all.”

“And that’s how you know they’re right,” Aziraphale said matter-of-factly, with a firm finger jab towards the sky. “They suit you, unquestionably. And you’re wrong, anyway, they are exciting. You look positively scrumptious.”

He blushed _hot_ once he said it, and hurriedly looked down and away, gripping his coat, all his attention suddenly very involved with a pigeon strutting about near his shoes.

He knew Crowley was smirking at him, and swaying his hips affectionately, as he often did these days.

“Alright, let’s pay and get out of this inferno,” Crowley uttered, fishing into the shallow pocket of his BeDazzled jeans and tugging out a crumpled bill with the only two fingers he could get inside. The street vendor tallied up the price of Crowley’s sunglasses and Aziraphale’s reading glasses, and with a pop of bubblegum in her mouth, she accepted payment, and Crowley tucked their new glasses cases under one arm.

They strolled down the street, from one smell to another, from sewer steam to the smoke of a roadside hot dog stand.

Eventually Crowley took off his sunglasses and looked at them. Then he pulled the glasses cases out from under his arm, and handed them to Aziraphale. Aziraphale put on his coat again, because he needed the pockets and didn’t want things falling out.

“Ice cream?” Crowley asked, seeing a shop across the road.

Aziraphale followed his line of sight, and grinned. “Oh, yes! Let’s.”

They jaywalked without hurry, Crowley ambling along with his hands in his pockets, holding up traffic and making people beep. He gave the taxi driver a thankful wave, and they reached the other side of the road without incident.

“What do you think, strawberry? I’m in a strawberry mood,” Aziraphale uttered, pushing open the glass door and holding it for Crowley. “Ah, lovely and cool in here. What a relief.”

They ordered for each other, or perhaps for themselves; their tastes were aligning more and more these days, and it was hard to say who wanted what. They’d been sharing a lot during these past two decades, Aziraphale thought, faintly, before the thought was eclipsed by the sight of Crowley sliding into a diner booth, right hip to the leather backrest, back to the wall, long legs stretched out, Doc Martens crossed at the ankle.

Aziraphale sat opposite, coat off, putting the glasses cases on the table.

They gave the waitress their thanks as she brought them their bowls of ice cream, piled up with decorated wafers and various sauces and toppings. 

“Let’s have a look then,” Crowley said after his first mouthful, tongue out to lick his spoon deeply. He gave Aziraphale an upward nod. “You tried a hundred pairs and I can’t even remember what you landed on.”

Aziraphale opened the case of his new reading glasses, thin-framed and tiny and round. “It’s quite silly, really,” he said with a tilted head, unfolding the frames and pushing them to his nose. “As an angel I’m not supposed to need something as functional as _reading_ glasses. Whatever _is_ the world coming to, I don’t know. I must’ve been down here too long.”

Crowley arched his bottom lip. Then he smiled, and it was a real, bright, not-at-all enigmatic smile. “They’re adorable, angel.”

Aziraphale noticed himself go pink, and his tummy fluttered. “Adorable?”

Crowley dropped his spoon in his bowl, both hands on his cheeks, elbows on the table. “Adorable beyond _belief_. Those My Little Ponies bow before your cuteness.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale felt quite flattered. “Thank you.”

Crowley purred a note, then let his head loll to one side, free hand scooping up his spoon and digging around in his ice cream. As he did, Aziraphale took off his reading glasses, and once again took a look at how perfect Crowley looked, shaggy-haired yet sleek all over. Those sunglasses really were exquisite on him. Aziraphale’s favourites throughout history, certainly.

“We should swap,” Aziraphale said boldly, as strawberry flavour cooled his tongue and a strike of exhilaration took hold of his insides.

Crowley looked up. “Pardon?”

Aziraphale felt tingles all the way down his body. “You and me. Swap. Just to try each other’s.”

Interested, Crowley set down his spoon, and... slowly, lips parting, he pushed his bowl across the smooth table.

Aziraphale looked at it. Then he cried, “Oh! I didn’t mean— I meant the glasses.”

“Oh— Ohohoh, right, right, obviously, yeah,” Crowley muttered, snatching back his bowl, looking a little electrocuted. “Mm-hm.”

He took off his sunglasses and handed them over, as Aziraphale gave him his reading glasses. They stared at each other for a moment, hearts pounding, lips licked wet.

“Um.” Aziraphale glanced down at the sunglasses. He unfolded them and put them on. He looked up and sighed in absolute delight, as Crowley now wore those little round spectacles, and he looked a _treat_. The narrow distance between the lenses made him seem cross-eyed, studious and soft and thoughtful, yellow eyes searching Aziraphale’s like an odd lizard.

Apparently Crowley saw Aziraphale’s unabashed smile, because he was already grinning lopsidedly as he asked, warmly, “What?”

Aziraphale let out a soft breath. “Nothing. I just.” _I love you far too deeply, my dear._ “I just feel – very comfortable in sunglasses all of a sudden.”

Crowley’s smile was a tender one. He seemed sad, almost, but there was a hint of satisfaction in that half-tilt of his head.

“And you,” Aziraphale said. “You do look marvellous. But I suspect those glasses look better on me.”

Crowley lowered his head and pulled off the glasses. “Glad you think so, because I am _not_ putting those on again.” His eyes were visibly watering, and he blinked several times, eyes on the ceiling. “Hng.”

They swapped back their eyewear, and returned to their desserts.

Aziraphale spooned around in his ice cream for a bit, then asked, on a tentative breath, “Would you like some of mine? The ice cream, I mean. This time.”

Crowley started to smirk. “Sure. Could go for some vanilla. Why not.”

They swapped bowls.

They ate with each other’s spoons.

They shared shy little smiles, trying to keep them secret.

They didn’t swap bowls back until right near the end, but they kept the spoons.

  


♥

  


**Soho, London, 2016**

“Oh, good Lord!” Aziraphale stood up suddenly, nearly dropping his cocoa on his desk. “ _Crowley!_ ”

“What,” Crowley cooed innocently, as if he hadn’t walked in here with his hair eight inches shorter than it had been in almost thirty years.

“You gave me a fright!” Aziraphale said testily. “I thought you were some – some – some—”

“Some dirty little demon sneaking into your shop, ready for a long, _hot_ night with a perfect angel?”

Aziraphale huffed at the flirtation. “Don’t you besmirch the summer weather like that. It may be too hot to breathe but you’re not allowed to make it sound so – so—”

“So what?” Crowley grinned, behind what Aziraphale realised were new sunglasses, with metal curved around their sides.

“So nothing!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “I wasn’t going to say anything!”

Crowley pouted, hips still. “You don’t like the hair, do you.”

Aziraphale scowled at the haircut. “No. I don’t. I _liked_ your hair long.”

Crowley pouted harder.

Aziraphale softened, and put his cocoa down properly. It was in a mug that Crowley had bought him, that read _World’s Sexiest Boyfriend_ in big pink letters. It was ‘ironic’, apparently, because none of the things it proclaimed were true of Aziraphale. Aziraphale used it only when his angel wing mug was in the wash. Which for an angel, technically ought to be never, but sometimes mugs just needed washing, and backup mugs needed to be rotated, because of... reasons.

With a sigh, Aziraphale gave that spiked-up quiff another look, tilting his head. He stepped closer, reaching to touch Crowley’s jaw, turning him, examining the haircut: short at the sides, long on top. Not a hair out of place, if one ignored the fact _none_ of his hair was where it was supposed to be.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Crowley hummed hopefully.

“I’ll get used to it,” Aziraphale said, still annoyed. “I did warn you, Crowley, short hair takes a lot more maintenance. Two weeks and you’ll start to look scruffy.” He stroked through Crowley’s quiff, feeling gel crack. “I can give you my barber’s number if you like.”

“Who d’you think did this?” Crowley asked incredulously, pointing at his head.

“I think you did it yourself,” Aziraphale said, stepping back, picking up his cocoa and giving it a sip. “And you’re completely missing my point, as per usual. A trip to the barber is—”

“Unnecessary.”

“Relaxing. And it keeps up appearances, Crowley, we’re supposed to look human.”

“Puh.” Crowley leaned his buttocks against Aziraphale’s desk, his crotch alarmingly close to Aziraphale’s head once he sat back down. “ _I_ look human. You look like a pavlova on legs.”

Aziraphale coughed into his drink. He looked up, giving Crowley a stern stare. “And _you_ look like a blinkered horse. What’s that metal on the sides of your sunglasses for, anyway? Is this another one of your phases? I told you, you old serpent, you can’t _be_ a ‘steampunk’.”

“Says you,” Crowley uttered. “The metal sides are so people don’t see the yellow, angel. There’s holes in them, look.” He took the glasses off to show the sides. “So I can still see out.”

Aziraphale tutted. He leaned back and sipped his cocoa, maintaining his air of annoyance for a little longer, as a matter of principle, before he let it fade. Once he’d gotten over the initial shock, it had really only taken him moments to get accustomed to the new hair, but if Crowley knew how easy it was for Aziraphale to accept a new look, he’d be dressing up each and every day, and leaving his garters or waistcoats or bike shorts here overnight, and Aziraphale wasn’t about to turn his bookshop into a costume storage facility, not after what happened _last_ time he let Crowley keep a clothing trunk handy. He was far too comfortable walking about half-dressed. And Aziraphale was uncomfortable with how much he enjoyed it.

Crowley was still holding the sunglasses. He offered them to Aziraphale by one metal arm.

Aziraphale stared at them. “And what are you expecting me to do with those?”

“Try them, angel.” Crowley’s voice had gone soft. “You like doing that.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I don’t.”

Crowley shrugged. “Don’t then.” He started to straighten them to put back on.

But Aziraphale’s fingers lifted...

Crowley offered them again. But he forewent handing them over, and just put them on for Aziraphale, sliding them carefully over his ears, holding his gaze as they slid up to his nose.

“Heavy,” Aziraphale said, a little breathless, as Crowley was still touching his cheeks.

“You get used to it,” Crowley said, thumbing at Aziraphale’s jaw. “These are proper, _tough_ sunglasses, not the plastic nonsense I’ve been toting since the nineties.”

“They’re still going to get stomped under a horse,” Aziraphale warned. “Even _if_ you swear up and down you’re not going within fifty miles of a farmyard.”

Crowley smirked, knuckles curled under Aziraphale’s chin – which then vanished along with his heat as he settled back, smiling down at Aziraphale. “Horse, elephant, sixteen-wheeler truck. Your clumsy backside. They’ll be steamrollered eventually. ‘S why I bought twenty pairs.”

“Twenty!”

“All in the Bentley’s glove compartment.”

“My-my, that _is_ a good idea. Now you shan’t be going anywhere without emergency backup.”

Crowley folded his arms, still smiling down proudly. “You’re still cute.”

Aziraphale melted a little bit – then huffed loudly, giving Crowley’s hip a light whack. “You frightful hellion, stop _saying_ that.”

“Can’t take a compliment, can you,” Crowley uttered, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale stood up, taking off the sunglasses, looking down at them. “Demons can’t very well go around being _sweet_ to angels, can they. Could get... get that particular angel into a lot of trouble.”

Crowley gazed at him too tenderly, taking back the folded sunglasses in a hand without looking. “Would be a lot worse, wouldn’t you say... if that angel happened to like the demon back.”

Aziraphale sighed. He gulped, then looked down at his desk. “A lot worse.”

“Aziraphale... you’re the most hideous, meanest, most _damned_ annoying creature I’ve ever met,” Crowley said, with love.

Aziraphale didn’t even need a moment to be offended. He gazed back, heart swelling with affection. “I despise you, Crowley. Completely. And I hate your haircut.”

Crowley’s eyes welled up with joy. “I despise you too, angel.”

They held each other’s gaze for a few more heartbeats, wishing it was all different, and those precious inches between their bodies and souls didn’t have to be there.

Aziraphale’s gaze lowered to Crowley’s lips, then wrenched away.

Crowley took a small breath, but let it go without using it. He leaned off the desk, and sauntered away, silent, and slow.

  


♥

  


**Somewhere nice, 2019**

They stared at the ceiling.

The air smelled like laundry powder, which was supposed to smell like flowers, but Crowley had never smelled flowers that smelled like laundry powder. A fresh early-morning breeze whispered through the open window of the cottage, billowing the white privacy curtain and revealing flashes of sunlight across the ceiling.

Crowley breathed slowly. One hand rested backwards on his forehead, then twisted to comb through his messy hair. The pillow was warm under his head, warm enough that he noticed.

He drew a deep, deep, _deep_ breath, one he felt all the way down to the bottom of his lungs. Then he let it go, turning his head to look at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale lay there, just as peaceful. He watched that flash of light come and go above them, enjoying the shadow equally. His blinks were few and far between, his lips curled in a dainty smile.

Crowley swung an arm over his head, wrapping it down around his angel.

Aziraphale snuggled closer, inching up the bed, pushed by his toes. He rested against Crowley’s chest, fingers twirling his chest hair, ear to his heartbeat.

Crowley’s slim fingers sank through Aziraphale’s thoroughly tousled hair, scrunching, tangling and untangling. “Mmmmmmmmhhh... sssoft,” he whispered.

Aziraphale smiled. He breathed out, sliding his hand down Crowley’s bare front, then back up. “Warm.”

Crowley smirked, turning his nose to push a kiss to Aziraphale’s hair. “Love you.”

Aziraphale looked up at Crowley. He gazed for a while, dewy-eyed, drowning in sentiment. “You know, my dear, I still can’t quite believe we can really say it. Or do... this.” He put a kiss on Crowley’s heart. Testing, he breathed, “I love you, Anthony J. Crowley.”

Crowley’s smile wibbled.

Aziraphale began to grin. He’d said it three times now, and he hadn’t caught fire, nor had the legions of Heaven come to claim him. They really were safe.

They rested for a while longer, cuddling as sweetly as they dared.

Eventually Aziraphale’s eyes fell upon the bedside table, where Crowley had lain his sunglasses last night as they’d fallen as one creature between the sheets, terrified and excited, holding hands and holding each other like their lives depended on it.

Aziraphale reached out to take the sunglasses, fingers touching the heat of sunlight. These sunglasses were a new set, blown up in the Bentley and restored by Adam. They were one pair of many, but to Aziraphale, they were simply Crowley’s Sunglasses.

Rolling onto his back, Aziraphale opened them up, and perched them on his nose. He grinned, watching the morning sunlight flutter on the ceiling as before, the whole room now tempered by a familiar shadow. He turned his head to look at Crowley, whose flaming hair shone with daylight, snake eyes peering softly, his expression unbearably fond.

Aziraphale lifted the sunglasses to his forehead, meeting Crowley’s eyes. “Boo,” he said.

Crowley grinned.

Laughing, Aziraphale set aside the glasses, squirming up to cradle Crowley in his arms again, Aziraphale lying on top, heart-to-heart, hands sliding palm-to-palm, fingers locked together. Their grins touched, lips almost meeting, noses nudging to cheeks.

They kissed, once, slowly breathing out and relaxing.

Through the lenses of the sunglasses, the sun rose higher in a perfect summer sky. A twinkle of a reflection peeked through; soon a searing white starburst arrived, blazing, then moved past on its way.

Two ancient shadows tangled and twined, and with the soft laugh they shared, the light of love illuminated their joyous eyes.

**{ the end }**

**Author's Note:**

> ☆ [reblog art](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/189402271060/inspecting-the-spectacles-crowleyaziraphale)  
> ☆ [reblog opening lines](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/189402311715/inspecting-the-spectacles)
> 
> If you liked this you'll like my other [other Crowley/Aziraphale fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=575567&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=almaasi)... especially maybe [**'Husband' Has a Nice Ring to It**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716397) or [**Three Unthwarted Wiles**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20116639). ♥
> 
> Thank you for reading! Let me know if you had a good time :D  
> Elmie x


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